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=BISHOPERS AND COMMONERS.=

FROM this time parties in Geneva took new forms and new names. There were not simply, as before, partisans of the foreign domination and Savoy, and those of independence and Switzerland: the latter were divided. Some, having Hugues and Balard as leaders, declared for the bishop; others, with Maison-Neuve and Porral at their head, declared for the people. They desired not only to repel the usurpations of Savoy, but also to see the fall of the temporal power of the bishop in Geneva. 'Now,' said Bonivard, 'that the first division into mamelukes and huguenots has almost come to an end, we have the second—that of bishopers (évêquains) and commoners (communiaires).' These two parties had their men of sense and importance, and also their hotheaded adherents; as, for instance, De la Thoy on the side of the commoners, and Pécolat, the man of whom it would have been least expected, among the bishopers. A singular change had been effected in this former martyr of the bishop: the jester had joined the episcopal band. Was it because he was at heart catholic and even superstitious (he had ascribed, it will be remembered, the healing of his tongue to the intervention of a saint), or because, being a thorough parasite, he preferred the well-covered tables of the bishopers? We know not. These noisy partisans, the vanguard of the two parties, were frequently quarrelling. 'They murmured, jeered, and made faces at each other.'

At the same time this new division marked a step made in advance by this small people. Two great questions were raised, which sooner or later must rise up in every country. The first was political, and may be stated thus: 'Must we accept a traditional dominion which has been established by trampling legitimate rights under foot?' (This was the dominion of the bishop.) The second was religious, and may be expressed thus: 'Which must we choose, popery or the Gospel?' Many of the commoners, seeing the bishop and the duke disputing about Geneva, said that these two people were fighting for what belonged to neither of them, and that Geneva belonged to the Genevans. But there were politicians also among them, lawyers for the most part, who founded their pretensions on a legal basis. The bishops and princes of Geneva ought by right, as we have seen, to be elected at Geneva and not at Rome, by Genevans and not by Romans. The issue of the struggle was not doubtful. How could the bishop make head against magistrates and citizens relying on positive rights, and against the most powerful aspirations of liberty that were awaking in men's hearts? How could the Roman doctrine escape the floods of the Reformation? Certain scandals helped to precipitate the catastrophe.

On the 12th of July some huguenots appeared before the council. 'The priests of the Magdalen,' they said, 'keep an improper house, in which reside several disorderly women.' There were among the Genevans, and particularly among the magistrates, men of good sense, who had the fear of God before their eyes and confidence in him in their hearts. These respectable laymen (and there may have been priests who thought the same) had a deep conviction that one of the great defects of the middle ages was the existence of popes, bishops, priests, and monks, who had separated religion from morality. The council attended to these complaints to a certain extent. They banished from Geneva the persons who made it their business to facilitate illicit intercourse, obliged the lewd women to live in a place assigned them, and severely remonstrated with the priests.743 The first breath of the Reformation in Geneva attacked immorality. It was not this affair, however, which gave the bishop his death-blow; it was a scandal occasioned by himself, and in his own house. 'Halting justice' was about to overtake the guilty man at last.

=ABDUCTION OF A YOUNG WOMAN.=

One day a report suddenly got abroad which put the whole city in commotion. 'A young girl, of respectable family,' said the crowd, 'has just been carried off by the bishop's people: we saw them dragging her to the palace.' It was an electric spark that set the whole populace on fire. The palace gates had been immediately closed upon the victim, and the bishop's servants threatened to repel with main force the persons who demanded her. 'Does the bishop imagine,' said some of the patriots, 'that we will put up with his beatings as quietly as the folks of St. Claude do?' It would seem that La Baume permitted such practices among the Burgundians, who did not complain of them. The girl's mother, rushing into the street, had followed her as fast as possible, and had only stopped at the closed gates of the episcopal palace. She paced round and round the building, roaring like a lioness deprived of her whelp. The citizens, crowding in front of the palace, exclaimed: 'Ha! you are now throwing off the mask of holiness which you held up to deceive the simple. In your churches you kiss God's feet, and in your life you daringly spit in his face!' Many of them called for the bishop, summoning him to restore the young woman to her mother, and hammering violently at the gate.

The prelate, who was then at dinner, did not like to be disturbed in this important business; being puzzled, moreover, as to the course which he ought to adopt, it appeared that the best thing he could do was to be deaf. He therefore answered his servants, who asked him for orders, 'Do not open the door;' and raising the glass to his lips, he went on with his repast. But his heart was beginning to tremble: the shouts grew louder, and every blow struck against the gate found an echo in the soul of the guilty priest. His servants, who were looking stealthily out of the windows, having informed him that the magistrates had arrived, Pierre de la Baume left his chair, paler than death, and went to the window. There was a profound silence immediately, and the syndics made the prelate an earnest but very respectful speech. The bishop, terrified at the popular fury, replied: 'Certainly, gentlemen, you shall have the young woman.... I only had her carried off for a harper, who asked me for her in return for his services.' Monseigneur had not carried off the girl in the violence of passion, but only to pay the wages of a musician! It was not more guilty, but it was more vile. The palace gates were opened, and the girl was restored to her mother. Michael Roset does not mention the harper, and leads us to believe that the bishop had taken her for himself. This scandalous abduction was the last act done in Geneva by the Roman bishops.744

From that moment the deposition of the bishop was signed, as it were, in the hearts of most of the citizens. 'These, then, are the priests' works,' they said, 'debauchery and violence!... Instead of purifying the manners of the people, they labour to corrupt them! Ha! ha! you bishopers, a fine religion is that of your bishop!'

Opposition to a corrupt government soon began to appear a duty to them. The right of resistance was one of the principles of that society in the middle ages, which some writers uphold as a model of servility. In the Great Charter of England, the king authorised his own subjects, in case he should violate any one of their liberties, 'to pursue and molest him to the uttermost of their power, by seizing his castles, estates, possessions, and otherwise.' In certain cases, the vassals could separate themselves entirely from their suzerain. Some vassals, it is true, might carry this principle too far, and claim to throw off the feudal authority whenever it pleased them; but the law made answer: 'No, not unless there is reasonable cause.'745 When freeing herself from the bishop-princes, who had so often violated the franchises and connived with the enemies of the city, Geneva thought she was acting with very reasonable cause, and not going beyond the bounds of legality. The ruin of the bishops and princes of Geneva, already prepared by their political misdeeds, was completed by their moral disorders.

But if the friends of law and morality desired to break by legal means the bonds which united them to the bishop-prince, other persons, the wits and brawlers, envenomed against his partisans, began to get up quarrels with the bishopers. One day 'the young men of Geneva,' returning from a shooting match, where, says the chronicler, they had 'had many a shot at the pot' (that is, had drunk deeply), determined to give a smart lesson to two of the bishop's friends, Pécolat and Robert Vandel. The latter, at that time attached personally to Pierre de la Baume, afterwards became one of the most zealous patriots. 'They are at St. Victor's,' somebody said; 'let us go and fetch them.' The party, headed by a drummer, went to the priory, where Bonivard told the ringleaders that the two bishopers and others were diverting themselves at Plainpalais. Just as the band arrived, the episcopals were entering the city: one of the 'sons of Geneva,' catching sight of Pécolat and Vandel, exclaimed: 'My lord, you have traitors among you there!' The bishop spurred his mule and rode off; Pécolat drew his sword; his opponent, De la Thoy, did the same, and they began to cut at each other. The fray was so noisy that the guards in alarm shut the gates, when a few reasonable men parted the combatants. A more serious movement was accomplishing in the depths of men's minds. Nothing but secularisation and reformation could put an end to the almost universal discontent.746

=THE DUKE'S MENACES.=

The Duke of Savoy wished for another solution. His councillors represented to him that the bishop had lost his credit among the nobles and clergy, through his desire to ally himself with the Swiss; that he was ruined with the citizens by his unedifying mode of life; and that the moment had come for giving these restless people a stronger shepherd, who would cure them of their taste for political and religious liberty. In consequence of this, the duke summoned the Genevans, on the 30th of July, to recognise his claims, and his ambassadors added that, if the citizens refused, 'Charles III. would come in person with an army, and then they would have to keep their city ... if they could.' The Genevans made answer: 'We will suffer death rather.' The Bernese, informed of the threats of Savoy, sent ambassadors to Chambéry to admonish (admonester) the duke. 'I have a grudge against the city,' he said, 'and against the bishop also, and I will do my pleasure upon him in defiance of all opposition.'—'Keep a good look-out,' said the Bernese ambassadors to the syndics, on their return, 'for the duke is preparing to carry off the bishop and confiscate the liberties of the city.' The bishop and the citizens were exceedingly agitated. Men, women, and children set to work: they cut down the trees round the walls, pulled down the houses, and levelled the gardens, while four gangs worked at the fortifications. 'We would rather die defending our rights,' said the Genevans, 'than live in continual fear.'747

It might have been imagined that the duke, by declaring war at the same time against the bishop and the city, would have brought them nearer each other; but the popular irritation against the bishop and clergy was only increased by it. The citizens said that all the misfortunes of Geneva proceeded from their having a bishop for a prince; and La Baume saw a conspirator in every Genevan. More than one bishop, the oppressor of the liberties of his people, had fallen during the middle ages under the blows of the indignant burgesses. For instance, the wretched Gaudri, bishop of Laon in the twelfth century, having trampled the rights of the citizens under foot, had been compelled to flee from their wrath, and hide himself in a cask in the episcopal cellar. But, being discovered and dragged into the street, he was killed by the blow of an axe, and his body covered with stones and mud.748 If good catholics had practised such revenge upon their bishop, what would huguenots do?

=THE BISHOP RESOLVES TO LEAVE GENEVA.=

La Baume had other fears besides. An intriguing woman, his cousin Madame de Besse, generally known as Madame de la Gruyère, being gained over by the duke, alarmed the bishop by insinuating that he was to be kidnapped, and that this time his mule would not save him. That lady had scarcely left the palace when the Bernese entered and said to the frightened bishop: 'Make haste to go! for the duke is coming to take you.' They may have said this with a mischievous intention, desiring to free the city from the bishop. La Baume had not a minute of repose afterwards. His servants, threatened by the huguenots, began to be afraid also, and thus increased their master's alarm. He passed the day in anguish, and awoke in the night uttering cries of terror. At times he listened as if he heard the footsteps of the men coming to carry him off. He did not hesitate: his residence in the episcopal city had become insupportable. He had too much sense not to see that the cause of his temporal principality was lost, and, to add to his misfortune, the only prince who could defend him was turning against him. Whatever the risk, he must depart. 'Whereat the bishop was so vexed,' says Bonivard, 'that he meditated retiring from Geneva into Burgundy.' He flattered himself that he would be quiet in the midst of his good vassals of St. Claude, and happy near his cellars of Arbois!749

It was, however, no easy thing to do. He would have to get out of Geneva, pass through the district of Gex, and cross the Jura mountains, all filled with armed men. Feeling the want of some one to help him, he determined to apply to Besançon Hugues. He invited him to come to the palace, but in the night, so that no one might see him. When Hugues got there, the wretched and guilty prelate squeezed his hand, and told him all his troubles. 'I can no longer endure the wrong, violence, and tyranny which the duke does me,' he said. 'I know that he is plotting to kidnap me and shut me up in one of his monasteries. On the other hand, I mistrust my own subjects, for they are aiming at my life. I am day and night in mortal torment. You alone can get me out of the city, and I hope you will manage so that it shall not be talked of.' Besançon Hugues was touched when he saw the man whom he recognised as his lord agitated and trembling before him. How could he refuse the alarmed priest the favour he so earnestly demanded?... He left the bishop, telling him that he would go and make preparations for a nocturnal flight.750

=FLEES BY NIGHT TO ST. CLAUDE.=

In the night of the 1st and 2nd of August, 1527, Hugues went secretly to the palace, accompanied by Michael Guillet, a leading mameluke. The prelate received his friends like liberating angels. They all three went down into the vaults, where La Baume ordered a private door to be opened which led into the street now called the Rue de la Fontaine. He had to go along this street to reach the lake; but might not some of those terrible huguenots stop him in his flight? He crept stealthily and in disguise out of the palace, put himself between his two defenders, and, a prey to singular alarm, went forward noiselessly. On arriving at the brink of the water, the fugitive and his two companions descried through the darkness the boatmen whom Hugues had engaged. La Baume and Besançon entered the boat, while Michael Guillet returned to the city. The boatmen took their oars, and crossed the lake at the point where the Rhone flows out of it. La Baume looked all round him; but he could see nothing, could hear nothing but the dull sound of the oars. The danger, however, was far from being passed. The right bank might be occupied by a band of his enemies.... When the boat touched the shore, La Baume caught sight of two or three men with horses. They were friends. Hugues and the bishop got into their saddles without a moment's loss, and galloped off in the direction of the Jura. The bishop had never better appreciated his good luck in being one of the best horsemen of his day; he drove the spurs into his steed, fancying at times that he heard the noise of Savoyard horses behind him. In this way the bishop and his companion rode on, all the night through, along by-roads and in the midst of great dangers, for all the passes were guarded by men-at-arms. At last the day appeared. In proportion as they advanced, La Baume breathed more freely. After four-and-twenty hours of cruel fright, the travellers arrived at St. Claude. Pierre de la Baume was at the summit of happiness.751

The day after his departure, the news of the bishop's flight suddenly became known in Geneva, where it caused a great sensation. 'Alas!' said the monks in their cloisters, 'Monseigneur, seeing the approaching tribulation, has got away by stealth across the lake.' The patriots, on the contrary, collecting in groups in the public places, rejoiced to find themselves delivered by one act both from their bishop and their prince. At the same time the Savoyard soldiers, posted round Geneva, were greatly annoyed; they had been on the watch night and day, and yet the bishop had slipped through their fingers. To avenge themselves, they swore to arrest Besançon Hugues on his return. The latter, making no stay at St. Claude, reappeared next morning at daybreak in the district of Gex, when he soon noticed that gentlemen and soldiers were all joining in the chase after him. The bells were rung in the village steeples, the peasants were roused, and every one shouted: 'Hie! hie! the traitor Besançon!' It seemed impossible for him to escape. Having descended the mountain, he followed the by-roads through the plain, when suddenly a number of armed men fell upon him. Hugues had great courage, a stout sword, and a good horse; fording the water-courses, and galloping across the hills, he saved himself, 'as by a miracle,' says his friend Balard.752

=THE HIRELING FORSAKES THE SHEEP.=

The Genevans were very uneasy about him, for they all loved him. The drums beat, the companies mustered under their officers, and they were about to march out with their arms to protect him, when suddenly he arrived, panting, exhausted, and wounded. They would have liked to speak to him, and, above all, to hear him; but Hugues, hardly shaking hands with his friends, rode straight to his own house and went to bed; he was completely knocked up. The syndics went to his room to investigate the circumstances of which he had to complain. But erelong the brave man recovered from his fatigue, and the city was full of joy. The bishop's flight still further increased their cheerfulness: it snapped the bonds of which they were weary. 'The hireling,' they said, 'leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, when he seeth the wolf coming.'753 'Therefore,' they added, 'he is not the shepherd.'

743 Registres du Conseil du 12 juillet 1527.

744 Roset MS. Chronol. liv. ii. ch. xv. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 455.

745 Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, p. 61. Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iv. p. 72.

746 Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 464.

747 Registres du Conseil des 30 juillet et 25 août 1527. Journal de Balard, pp. 125, 126.

748 'Quot saxis, quot et pulveribus corpus oppressum.'—G. de Novigento, Opp. p. 507.

749 Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 473. Spon, Hist. de Genève, ii. p. 410. Gautier MS.

750 Savyon, Annales, p. 139. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 474. Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, pp. 427, 428, &c.

751 Journal de Balard, p. 126. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 474. Mém. d'Archéol. ii. p. 12.

752 Journal de Balard, p. 127. Registres du Conseil du 6 août 1527, La Sœur de Jussie, p. 4.

753 John x. 12.